Reversal of Ageing is Possible in Humans claims a Harvard Geneticist

Shobith MAKAM

1 year ago

At a science conference held in La Jolla, renowned Harvard geneticist George Church has announced that increasing life rate of a person and thereby reversing age in humans as possible. Such a statement on the reversal of ageing was made based on the research conducted on the same lines on animals.

Church, a keynote speaker at the Future of Genomic Medicine conference, “Reversal is something that has been demonstrated in a number of different animals in a number of different ways.” “I think that’s going to translate into larger animals and humans. We won’t know until we try. But we trying 65 different genes in different combinations to see if we can reproduce the aging reversal that we’ve seen in small animals.”

Church who have helped organize Human Genome Project, exclaimed that the prime focus has to be with dealing the factors that cause ageing in humans.

“A lot of the drugs in development are aimed at effects, those things that are downstream of the cause of age,” said Church. “The real cause is probably genetic … We’re trying to get at those causes and reverse those. We’re talking about reversing the epigenetic changes that are at the nucleus of every cell.”

Church on discussing the scope the research they are doing, “If we could take one of my skin cells and turn it into an embryo-like cell and turn it back into a skin cell it has reset almost all of the developmental indications of age. We have 65 gene therapies that are being tested in mice and larger animals. If they go well we will go straight into human trials. That could be as little as two years …”

The tests that have been conducted on animals does not essentially prove to be successful in humans. So it requires a lot of time to come up with accurate solutions.

Nevertheless, Church seems to be optimistic about the study, “We don’t know what (age reversal) would mean in terms of human years. Animals have had their life extended by factors of two to 10. That seems too good to be true for humans.”